Scientists believe the ancient city was destroyed by a cosmic explosion.
Scientists have discovered 3,600-year-old evidence that the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam in the Jordan Valley was destroyed by a "cosmic explosion," which might be the basis of the biblical account of Sodom's destruction. Archaeologists discovered fragments of pottery with a glassy exterior surface, "bubble" mud brick, and partially melted construction material. Experts estimate that this incident was greater than the 1908 Tunguska meteorite explosion.
According to a new research, scientists have discovered 3,600-year-old proof that the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam was destroyed by a "cosmic air explosion." According to the Daily Mail, this episode may have influenced the biblical account of the destruction of wicked Sodom.
Shards of pottery with the exterior surface transformed into glass, as well as "bubble" mud brick and partially melted building material, were discovered in the Jordan Valley by experts from all over the world, including the University of California in Santa Barbara.
These are evidence of an unusually high-temperature event that was "bigger than the 1908 Tunguska explosion in Siberia, and much hotter than anything that technology at the time could create," according to the researchers.
In a statement, co-author James Kennett remarked, "We observed indications indicating temperatures were exceeding 2,000 degrees Celsius."
Kennett compared the blast to the Tunguska Phenomenon, a 12 megaton aerial explosion that occurred in 1908 above the eastern Siberian taiga when a 56-60 meter meteor entered the Earth's atmosphere.
While there is no scientific proof that Tall el-Hammam, in the southern Jordan Valley's hills, was the biblical city of Sodom, Kennett and the study's authors admit that it is plausible.
According to the researchers, a major disaster, such as the destruction of Tall el-Hammam by a cosmic object, may have generated an oral narrative that was passed down from generation to generation and finally formed the foundation of historical Sodom's recorded history in the Book of Genesis.
“The destruction of an urban center in the Dead Sea region described in Genesis is consistent with an eyewitness account of a cosmic explosion in the air, for example: I stones fell from the sky; (ii) fire descended from the sky; (iii) thick smoke rose from the fires; (iv) a major city was destroyed; (v) the inhabitants of the city were killed; and (vi) crops were destroyed. If this is the case, Tall al-destruction Hammam's may be the second-oldest known occurrence of colliding with a celestial body, behind Abu Hureira's 12,800-year-old collision with a celestial body in Syria.
The city was destroyed to the ground by a cosmic explosion, according to the study, leaving the palace and surrounding walls flat. Human remains, including a skull, were also discovered, according to the researchers. The skull has an orange tinge, indicating that it has been subjected to extreme heat.
In addition to molten metals, Kennett said spherules rich in iron and silica were detected in the soil and sediments in the explosion layer, indicating a cosmic impact.
Kennett stated, "I believe this is one of the great findings." - These are sand grains having fractures that appear only under extreme pressure. We pushed the quartz out of this stratum, implying that the quartz crystals were shaken under tremendous pressure - quartz is one of the toughest rocks.
Diamonoids, a small molecule as hard as diamond that has long been linked to cosmic collisions, have also been discovered in the layer of destruction.
The Dead Sea salt may have been carried to neighboring Tell es Sultan (also known as Jericho) and Tall Nimrin as a result of the cosmic impact.
This might have been the source of the "Late Bronze Age Rift," which saw inhabitants in the Jordan Valley's lower reaches unable to cultivate food in a once-fertile region.
Tall el-Hammam was 10 times the size of Jerusalem and 5 times the size of Jericho at its height during the Middle Bronze Age. Kennett described the region as “extremely culturally significant.” "This broad area is where most of early human cultural sophistication emerged."